King of Races

LWA Summer Series Event 6: King George Sat 16 Sep 2017:

It made a pleasant change to have a light wind event, even though our day was complicated by having to share the start line and the water with a Solo dinghy event. However the Race Officer handled the challenge very calmly and in fact there were no problems at all, to our great satisfaction and relief.

We had a couple of newcomers to the fleet, a King George member, Jonathan Atherton, who sailed a Bic board, unfortunately the borrowed UJ which he used sheared off when he was on the other side of the reservoir and he was left with a long walk home and no results. The other newcomer was 9 year old Guy Gibson who was taking part in his first ever racing event, nine years after his two sisters made their racing debut at this same venue. On a 3.4 metre sail Guy managed one lap in every race, which was quite brilliant considering the lack of positive wind on some parts of the course.

Race One went to Rob Kent, with a flying Alysia Gibson in second place ahead of Nick Kidd. The large black clouds which were circling the reservoir exercised a strange influence on the winds and made their presence felt all day, however we were fortunate to escape the thunderstorms which plagued the rest of London.

Race Two found Peter Murray on his Div II taking great lumps out of the rest of the fleet and he crossed the line in first place ahead of Toby Cave and Bob Ingram. We then came in for a long lunch to enable the dinghies to finish their three races for the day and then we had the water to ourselves for the remainder of the afternoon.

By the time we went out for Race Three the wind had gone westerly which meant a change of course. Unfortunately King George is rather well supplied with yellow marks, most of whose numbers are somewhat obscured by the attentions of perching seagulls. So there was some confusion as to which was Mark no 5, our new windward mark. However when the race order was sorted out the usual suspects were at the front, namely Rob, Toby and Bob. Florent Lambert on the other Div II had his best result of the day in 5th.

Just as Race Four started the wind suddenly shifted sharply to the east, a couple of people fell off on the line and Lady Luck played a huge part in what happened next - that is apart from the top three who were the same as the previous race.

Congratulations go to Rob Kent who is now in an unassailable winning position for the LWA Summer Series this year. Congrats also to daughter Emily who beat her mum to get the 1st Lady prize, and also to Toby Cave and Alysia Gibson who took 2nd and 4th overall and won the 1st Youth Boy and 1st Youth Girl prizes.

RESULTS: overall positions in brackets

1: Rob Kent (also 1st Master and 1st Light)

2: Toby Cave (also 1st Youth Boy)

3: Bob Ingram (also 1st Vet)

1st Youth Girl: Alysia Gibson (4)

1st Supervet: Nick Kidd (5)

1st Div II: Peter Murray (6)

1st Lady: Emily Kent (8)

1st Techno: Guy Gibson (18)